Finding Hope

by Katlyn Grace

  “God did just that,” Hope reassured her with a smile. Seemed like Mark never failed to do the right thing. He wore the same face throughout every day of his life that he did behind the pulpit on Sunday’s. “A little spoken prayer can go a long way.”

  Sara wetted her lips, getting herself ready to speak more. “Hope, I selfishly walked out on God when my parents passed. Ethan and I fought like cats and dogs after that, and I didn’t understand that God even had a plan through my pain. I still don’t understand it all but getting so close to death has shaken me up. I remember having such a peace with God at one point in my life. I lost it, and now I desperately want it back.” She shifted from the position in her bed, sniffling. “How do I get back to the place I was at before the mess?”

  Sara longed for God’s presence in her life, Hope could plainly see it. “Sara, the hardest part is over. You have realized that you are not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. All you must do is ask God to forgive you, and He will do just that. His grace, love, and mercy cover a multitude of sin. He loves you, and He wants to be your Protector.” Hope grabbed Sara’s hand, hoping it would give her some comfort. “If you want to go back to the place of true peace and joy, just believe in Him and accept Him.”

  Hope watched as wet tears flowed down Sara’s cheeks. She silently prayed that Sara would trust in God once again. Sara would have a peace settled in her life, and God wouldn’t let her down, even when storms would arrive. It just may spark a new hope in Ethan’s life as well.

  She’d let God guide her through her words, now it was time to watch Him work through Sara’s decision.

  After a few minutes of silence and tears, Sara spoke, but barely above a whisper. “Hope, would you and Bri pray with me? I want my peace back.” Tears flowed down her cheeks, causing a few salty tears to fall from Hope’s own eyes.

  “That’s what friends are for.” Bri beamed as she made her way to the other side of Sara’s bed.

  The three of them grabbed hands and went into a Holy Spirit filled prayer. Hope could feel God’s very presence even in a dingy hospital room. Praise God for muffins and Jesus’s love that still attracted millions.

  five

  “W ould you like for me to pick up some coffee at the café? Maybe some cupcakes?” Ethan offered, keeping his eyes on the road in front of him.

  Sara had officially been released from the hospital Monday afternoon. It had been a fight just getting her in the truck with him. She feared getting back inside a vehicle, that the same thing would happen again. However, after convincing her he’d only go sixty miles per hour in the slow lane on the interstate and that he’d fix her dinner, she finally got situated in his truck. He could tell by the way she gripped her seat and squeezed her eyes shut that she wasn’t comfortable.

  She had many restrictions for a few months that Ethan knew she wouldn’t like. Especially not going back to work. She was a well-respected doctor in the hospital with crazy hours assisting, and helping others recover. It was her job, and Ethan understood she was passionate about it.

  Nonetheless, Sara was ready to go home with no more monitors attached to her, and to sleep in her personal bed. She’d stated that over and over in Ethan’s ear. He had realized when the doctor released her that he was going to have to stay with her until she could do things on her own. There was no way he was leaving her stranded after all she had gone through this past week.

  “Plain chocolate, with white icing.” Sara reclined back into the passenger seat carefully.

  Ethan smiled to himself. His sister had never been the adventurous type when it came to trying new things. For as long as he could remember her favorite dessert had always been chocolate cake and vanilla icing. She hadn’t changed one bit. Maybe that’s where he got his consistency from. “Nothing new?”

  “I said chocolate and white icing. Not a pineapple upside down cupcake with piña colada icing.”

  She was moody. Ethan discovered earlier in the week that it had been the pain killers that made her snarky. Sara woke up from a nap a few days ago dehydrated, and practically snapped at him for not getting ice fast enough.

  He laughed. “Chocolate it is.”

  “Don’t you dare forget the white icing.” She held up her pointer finger for him to see.

  “You mean vanilla?” He smirked, trying to aggravate her.

  “White. There’s a difference.” She narrowed her brows as if he were supposed to know these things.

  He laughed and then called in their order at Hope’s bakery. Ethan watched Sara close her eyes again as he drove. He missed this. The endless banter, yet the boundless sibling love they had for one another. It was like nothing had changed, but in reality…everything had.

  “Ethan?” She opened her eyes again long enough to look at him.

  “Hmm?”

  “Once I get back on my feet again, I’m going to start going back to church.”

  He almost slammed on the brakes at Sara’s rather bold statement, but he caught himself before he did. “Why?” He didn’t understand why she would want to. God wasn’t real.

  “Coming so close to death was frightening. But if I close my eyes, I can still hear the prayer of that police chief. He asked God to keep me alive and safe. He cared so much, and he didn’t even know me. I remember opening my eyes for just a second to see the tears cascade down his face, then there was darkness. In that moment of darkness, I thought it was over with. I thought surely my life had ended.” She took a deep breath, and Ethan looked over to see a tear escape her eye.

  For a moment, a breathtaking chill shivered down his spine. Reality wanted to slap him in the face at Sara’s last sentence. Death was a frigid word that made his numb soul shudder.

  “When I woke up,” Sara continued, “I remembered thinking it was a second chance. I can’t mess this one up, Ethan. I asked God to forgive me, and I feel at peace again. For so long, I was furious with God for ripping our parents out of our lives, but Hope showed me a Bible verse yesterday to ponder on in the book of Isaiah. It says, ‘my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.’ Ethan, I don’t understand why God took our parents to Heaven early on in our adulthood. I don’t think I ever will, but I have to trust that His ways are better than mine.”

  Ethan didn’t understand. They both trusted in God once and He hadn’t answered their prayers. What made her think He would answer them this time? “He’s just going to let you down again. I don’t want to see you get hurt by something that isn’t real.” He spoke too soon and mentally cursed at himself.

  She smiled at him. Why was she smiling? “You’ll come to your senses soon enough, bub. God’s not going to let me down. Man might, but God will not.”

  He gripped the steering wheel harder. He didn’t want to blow up on her, tell her that this was preposterous, so he squeezed the wheel until his knuckles turned pale. It was the only way to keep his roller coaster of emotions from spilling out on her.

  “Your fingers are going to fall off if you don’t quit constricting that wheel.” She laughed. “Look, no matter if you choose to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that He is in Heaven with His Father right now, I’ll still be your sister, and I’ll still be here for you. I just pray you would consider it again.”

  Three people in the past week had mentioned God to him. First the nurse, then Hope, and now his sister. He didn’t want to talk about it. He chose to believe that after all those years obeying God, only for God to not answer his prayer when his parents were lying in hospital beds dying, God simply wasn’t real. God said in the Bible that He loved those who followed Him and would answer their prayers. Yet, God never answered the one prayer that Ethan needed to be answered most in his life.

  Since Sara was in pain, he wasn’t going to argue any further. He sighed. “And I’m your brother.”

  Sara chewed on her lip, something that made Ethan nauseated. What was his sister thinking about? “I’m glad that you mentioned that. I was wondering i
f you’d do something for me.”

  Her plans and favors were always well thought out. Ethan never liked them. They always tended to involve too much work. “Anything for you, dearest Sara.” Sarcasm flew out of his mouth. It was a language they both spoke too well.

  “You said so yourself.” She paused with a grin. “I start physical therapy tomorrow. You’re going to visit Pastor Mark tomorrow. It’s just a block away, and you have to drop me off anyway.”

  “No.” He didn’t even know the reason why, but he didn’t want to go.

  “Hear me out. You haven’t had a sip of alcohol since you came to the hospital. You’ve been by my side twenty-four seven. So, basically an entire week, right?”

  He didn’t realize that. Ethan had been sober for a week. The more the thoughts reeled in his mind, the more his tongue desired a drip of the poison. It would relieve all his stress from the past week. He’d been thinking too much recently, and it was doing things to his heart. Things that Ethan didn’t want to face. “Right,” he acknowledged between gritted teeth.

  “Ethan, you have improved so much in a week. You seem happier, and livelier. Why not go talk to Mark Lawson? He’s proved to help more than five alcoholics in our little city overcome their addiction recently,” she said. “You don’t even have to talk about the Bible and Christianity with him if you’re not ready for that. I’d just really like for you to talk about your addiction with him. He’ll give you room to speak.” She didn’t give him time to speak though. “Ethan, knowing you were out there, the possibility of you getting hurt, and me not knowing anything for the past three years, it’s terrified me. I apologize for the things I’ve said to you that were rude and uncalled for. I’m your older sister, I should’ve been there for you.”

  “Only by three years.” He pointed out their age difference, not ready to recognize anything else she’d mentioned. Sara was twenty-eight and Ethan was twenty-five. “Even if you are older, I am the brother. I should’ve been the man. Should have been there by your side, catching the tears.” The guilt still resided on his shoulders.

  “I don’t want to go back to the way it was, me and you fighting constantly. I’m ashamed of that. I just want to try to repair our relationship as brother and sister. It’s what Mom and Dad would want.” She shifted in the passenger seat to make herself semi-comfortable.

  “I agree.” His parents would have never wanted this. When Sara and Ethan fought as kids, their mom and dad would immediately have them make up. They would always remind them that they were siblings, they were supposed to be the best of friends. His bottom lip trembled at thought of his parent’s wise words. Ethan was letting his mom and dad down.

  “Will you give it a try? One day is all I’m asking for,” she asked, hoping.

  He rubbed his lip with his thumb and sighed. “I’m not saying no, and I’m not saying yes, yet. Give me some time to think, okay?”

  “That’s all I’m asking for.” Sara closed her eyes with a satisfied smile skewed across her face.

  Surely talking to Mark Lawson one time wouldn’t hurt. Do for family, right?

  six

  H e was going to hate this. He was only doing it for his sister. Hopefully after today she would drop the subject for good. Stepping foot back into a church made Ethan’s stomach queasy. The last time he had been in a church was at his mom and dad’s funeral. It’d been a day full of rage, thunderstorms, and tears.

  People didn’t understand the reasoning behind his anger at God, and it was a secret that Ethan and his sister tried to withhold between the two of them.

  When Ethan was the age of five, and his sister, eight, their real father still roamed the earth. Prowling like a lion hunts his prey.

  Ethan shuddered at the distant memories that still seemed too close for comfort.

  Peter Wallace. An alcoholic. A drug addict. A cruel person. Looking back at it, Ethan wasn’t sure if he could even call Peter “Dad.” The images of Peter abusing Ethan’s mother were forever imbedded in his memory. His mom was always too afraid to speak her mind and stand up for herself. It didn’t make her a wimp, she had been a strong woman in the end.

  Peter raised his voice at Sara and Ethan more than Ethan would ever be able to number. He even physically abused the two of them when his anger intensified. Ethan feared life when he woke up in the morning as a kid. Sara would wail every time Peter would come close to her. At age five and eight, the most they should have had to worry about was which Lego went where.

  Ethan touched his forearm, rubbing his fingers over a scar his real father had created from snatching Ethan by the arm. He could still smell the blood. Hear his mother wailing in the bathroom. All these memories caused his body to tremor as he put his truck into Park in front of the community church Mark pastored.

  When he turned seven, Ethan’s first grade teacher curiously asked about his black eye, and he spilled his guts to her about his abusive father. Being an honest kid, he didn’t miss a single detail whilst telling her. Later that evening when Ethan and Sara trudged off the school bus, cops and ambulances surrounded his house, but no one seemed to be in a hurry. He didn’t spy anyone arresting Peter. Instead, they were carrying his birth father out in a body bag. Peter had shot and killed himself when he heard sirens in the driveway. Only eight, Ethan didn’t understand all the mass confusion going on around him.

  A cop had met Ethan and Sara in the driveway as the school bus drove away. Nathaniel Grey. The heroic cop that Ethan would never forget. The man who later became the father Ethan had never received.

  Nathan explained what was going on around them, and Ethan just buried his head in the cop’s arms. He desired for someone to care about him, and the affectionate cop did just that. Nathaniel spent days checking on Ethan and Sara’s mom, Kate, and him and his sister. As a kid growing up in the situation he did, it took forever for Ethan to trust in someone again. Trust was an issue. Not for Sara though. She loved the father figure at first sight.

  After months of taking Ethan and Sara out for ice cream, fishing, hunting, and teaching Ethan how to flirt, Nathaniel became an important person to Ethan. Not only to Ethan and Sara, but to their mom as well. Kate had fallen in love with the devoted Christian man Nathan was.

  Ethan was nine when Nathaniel came to him and Sara and asked permission to marry their mom. In that moment, nothing seemed more exciting than welcoming a real father into their family. Nathaniel was a father that centered God, church events, and the Bible in the midst of their family. He provided a hope for them. Their entire family accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts. Family had more of a meaning to it in that merciful second chance. Blood relations didn’t hold as much as an importance. It was God, unity, joy, and so much love that made their family stick like glue.

  Nathaniel had been a blessing, and so had his mom…for God to take that blessing away from Ethan, it upset him. It turned his world upside down. For six months after Kate and Nathan had been in the car crash, he wrestled around the question of why God would do that to him and his sister. Although they were old enough to live on their own, they were still left alone. He decided then that it was easier to believe there was no God, than to wrap his head around the why’s, how’s, and raging anger.

  That resulted in the was the person Ethan was today. The longer he dwelled on his past though, the more concerned he became. Bile rose in his throat as he suddenly realized he was morphing into his birth father. His hands quaked at the thought. No matter if there was a God or not, he couldn’t accept the fact that he was sending his sister back through that pain again. They wouldn’t have each other this time…Sara only had herself. Ethan had to stop drinking and grow up. He just had to.

  Mark had taken a day off duty just to meet him. That proved to Ethan where Mark’s priorities were. He’d never met a police officer so devoted to something else in his life other than his job, especially having the role of police chief in Alton. He could already tell that the man was driven by his passion of faith and beliefs.

/>   His sister was right. He needed this. He needed to recover.

  “You don’t look hungover this morning.” Hope quirked an eyebrow as she poured his cup of coffee and sat it down on the counter.

  “I had only two bottles last night,” Ethan stated with a smile.

  Hope didn’t know the regular amount that he consumed, so she assumed that two bottles were better than his usual number. The fact that he was trying said something. He wanted to take a different path. Hope just prayed that this new path led him to Jesus.

  Ethan had started coming back to the café yesterday morning, ordering mixed berry streusel muffins instead. She didn’t know why, but Hope was elated to see him walk through the door. There was something about him that made her heart go full speed like her electric mixer.

  “Progress is good.” Hope smiled. She took an older woman’s order and poured her a coffee to go, along with a bag of cream cheese Danishes. Once she finished, she sat back down on the barstool across from him and sighed. “It’s been a busy morning.”

  “How did interviews go last week?” Ethan took a sip of coffee, trying to make small talk with her as she took orders every now and then.

  She snarled her nose. “Long, but successful. We hired two more people to help behind the counter, and three in the kitchen. I definitely appreciate the extra hands now, we work efficiently for the most part. We’re all adapting to each other and I’m enjoying having them around.”

  He nodded. “Your schedule has settled down a bit then, hasn’t it?”

  “Depends on what you’re trying to get at.” Hope glanced down at her hands folded over each other on the countertop, trying to stop the blush that unwillingly crept to her cheeks.

  Ethan chuckled. “Would you like to join my sister and I for dinner Saturday evening? Sara would love your company.”